“Presuppositional Counseling: An Introduction to Van Til’s Influence Upon Jay Adams” by Jared Poulton

Throughout its history, the biblical counseling movement has experienced various periods of “rebranding.” Jay Adams first called his counseling approach “nouthetic counseling,” derived from the Greek word “noutheteo,” meaning to “admonish, correct, or instruct.” In 2013, a leading biblical counseling association “rebranded” from the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors (NANC) to the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC), identifying a significant transition within the movement of people identifying primarily as “biblical counselors.” Even more recently, another “rebranding” period has begun within the movement, as people continue to clarify their approach to counseling with labels such as “historic biblical counseling” and “redemptive counseling.” Each period of “rebranding” reveals a desire arising from the movement to clarify (1) the identity of the movement’s counselors and (2) the type of counseling they offer.

 

Within the movement’s history, there is another potential “label” that has not received significant attention: presuppositional counseling. The label “presuppositional counseling” reveals a significant feature of this counseling system that finds its origin in Adams—a desire to analyze counseling ideas and methods according to their presuppositions. In Competent to Counsel, Adams defined the “method” that supports the conclusions of his book as “presuppositional,” footnoting his key source for presuppositional thinking, the Dutch Apologist and his Westminster faculty member, Cornelius Van Til.